The travails of being a type-specific male.
Whether it’s nature in the form of some congenital biological exigency or nurture arising from decades of cultural submersion, there are just certain traits in a man that trigger a Pavlovian panting in me. While physicality admittedly plays its role, in many ways it’s personality idiosyncrasies — distinct aspects of self — that are likely to get me on board. These can’t be faked or bred into a potential mate; they have to preexist.
Disturbingly, I’m beginning to wonder how many of these traits are the result of actual human interaction, or simply fantasy aspects I’ve slowly cultivated in my mind. We can never measure the depth and degree to which visual media forms have played in shaping our sex drives. Centuries ago, attraction was based on practical concerns like proximity, pressing survival constraints, procreation, and community-arraigned unions.
Cut to present day, when even if the world isn’t actually your oyster, you’re led to believe it could be. Movies and television give the lie for me, the immediacy and consistency of the worlds and characters they conjure a recipe for non-stop obsession and frustrated expectations. If your love interest doesn’t already exist ready-made in the apartment across the way from you (Hi, I’m Bryce. I’m right across the hall. Anytime you’re ready.â€), then you get to work alongside him and slowly drive him to fits of obsessive jealousy.
So here they are: Five Obscure Types, the likes of which I probably won’t pass on the street with any satisfying regularity, but who are fixtures in the art houses and network schedules of my mind:
1. The Hot Geek
He’s the most accessible of the five. Known to sport choppy, textured hair and a disarmingly slink bod once he doffs his threads, usually the result of copious Wii or Dance Dance Revolution playing than typical gym time. Reads graphic novels, wears decal t-shirts (without the irony), and likes electronica. His face goes from elvishly playful to model handsome depending on how the light hits him. Will make out during viewings of Masters of The Universe or Voltron if I initiate, and will likely be a real viking in the hay by virtue of his willingness to please and goofy sensibility about the whole thing.
Stubbly, body-perfect Joel McHale (right) is his reigning manifestation, with tips of the hat going to Dr. Who’s lanky David Tennant (possessor of perhaps the most incredible bedhead-meets-anime haircut I’ve ever seen in 3-D), vermouth-voiced TJ Thyne, Bela Lugosi-browed Justin Theroux, and silky-haired shag wearer Jake Weber. If I want to flirt with an ethnic cliche, only to then undercut it, see also: Hong Kong sensation Kevin Cheng, bespectacled IT-guy on TV and real-life bitch magnet, and home-grown Parry Shen, inexplicably cast as virginal dorks despite the fact that he’s eminently doable. In theory, the Hot Geek is not impossible to cross paths with, but he’s still far outnumbered by his traditionally unappealing brethren, so when I see him, I take him down, whether he’s into it or not.
The Virgin/Whore
The most bisected and annoying of my types, but his potential dick factor is enough of a counterbalance to keep my eyes from rolling back when he utters “You know, I think deep down, everyone’s a good person†with total sincerity.
First, the irksome: he’s nauseatingly good-natured, a devout optimist, and always fucking chipper. He has a Dudley Do-Right-ish cast not only to his features, but in his whole disposition. There’s always a family picnic, touch football game, hayride, or whatever that he’s the centerpiece for, and his coming out was much easier and accepted than mine because he physically embodies every blandly heterosexual, Midwestern truism that leads everybody to think it’s just a phase.
I don’t want to date him per se — I want to defile him, and I do that by baiting and exploiting his inner whore that he fights to keep in check, slowly bending him to my will, and molding him in to my heat-seeking personal piece that I activate like a Clapper. He gets off on the double persona deal and likes being taken advantage of, which means I don’t have to be invited to dinner with his family wherein I have to pretend to give a damn about grand kids and graduations.
Matt Keeslar (top left), coming from sturdy Swedish stock and possessing the guileless, Cereal-box face of a child stuck on a Herculean body, is the ideal mark, but the real thing better be just as doable if I’m gonna put up with a human Care Bear.
The Sensitive Hardbody
This one probably exists in the same way that the Fiji Mermaid does, meaning he’s cobbled together from various wish fulfillment elements into something I hope equals more than the sum of his parts. The Charles Atlas physique is lifted from those Tired of Being Skinny? adverts in the back of Conan The Barbarian comics I got stiff to as a kid. He works out obsessively, not out of modern vanity, but because he’s a neo-classical aesthete. His apartment is sparse and cleanly austere. He doesn’t lacks taste; instead, he ascribes to the Spartan ideal of an unencumbered warrior who finds possessions fleeting.
Worships Alexandro Jodorowsky, David Lynch, Atom Egoyan, and Dario Argento, plus he has a bookshelf fashioned out of cinder blocks or wooden crates. Lives with a big, sexy dog whom he has a Beastmaster-like sway over. Our sex is steamy but never sleazy, scored to Ennio Morricone. Demi-god Joe Zaso (right), the newly-ripped Trent Reznor, dusky Marc Dacascos, and Asgaardian Alexander Skarsgaard are notable exemplars not turning up on the elliptical machine next to me.
4. The Gay Guido
Might as well wish for a unicorn. Guidohood is just too rooted in hetero swagger and ethnic provincialism to ever translate to our urbane experience. Still, I’ve always wanted to be half of the gay variation on those straight couples that we all know who have big public spats and chase each other all over the city.
I deserve to have a big, dumb animal decked out in a visor, Diesel tank, and diamond earrings on my heels trying to run me to ground, who, after I shout “You’re a loser, Rocco! We are sooooo over!,†brays “It’s not over! Nuttin’s over ‘til I fuckin’s sez so! Get yer ass in the car!â€.
Only barely-verbal Erik Rhodes (left) and ractackular Jesse Metcalfe fit the bill of what I envision my tool to be, and both of them are already pretty much smoked.
5. The Muscle Screwloose
Start with social marginalization, factor in plenty of hypertrophy, and crossbreed with debilitating mental or/social problems to get this winning combination. This one’s likely to be uniquely urban when it comes to his territory. He’s unable to function in a normal work environment, so he makes his trade as a bouncer, dock worker, or leg-breaker.
Will bare teeth if another man even looks at me, and basically regards me as property. Built, but naturally so, and most of his exercise comes from some sort of repetitive manual task. Prone to traipsing around stripped-to-the-waist in public. Highly possessive and obsessive. Sex with this one is akin to walking into a sliding glass door: I feel like I should’ve seen it coming, but I still don’t know what hit me. The first time leaves me feeling like a bruised and dazed Rosemary Woodhouse the morning after — wondering what just happened and if I even agreed to it — but I adapt over time and come to appreciate his assertiveness. Incarnate him as Chris Meloni (top right) or Jason Statham (opening photograph) and I’ll stare him down with arms akimbo and loins a-girded.
© 2009, Shawn Baker. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com
I’m pulled by two extremes, by far in terms of boyfriend material the Hot Geek is the most attractive. Dorks are adorable and sitting down playing Atari (and hopefully making out after) for hours is quite awesome. And then there is a Screwloose, which coincidentally I was watching OZ last night and saw Meloni on there, and it reminded me why I love the screwloose so much. There’s nothing wrong with a muscle mad man just going crazy…with you.
It’s so hard to choose. They are so different, but so perfect in their own way. Decisions. Decisions. Hmmm.
Great post!
I agreee with the other four, but I really don’t understand the “gay guido.” A guido… really? I don’t think I could imagine anything more unsexy than a blowout and orange tan.
No he’s right. Some of those stupid biyotches are fucking hot. (link)
http://www.guidofistpump.com/guidos3.jpg
Is Joel McHale really a geek? I guess it works, I do find him really attractive.
In this lineup, the one I go for is hot geek. Though until now I’ve never described it with that phrase.
I’m talking about the thin, cute boy who can banter about astrophysics, black holes and quantum theory but still with the grace and charm to stick in funny pop cultural references. He’s funny, worldy and breathtakingly intelligent, and kind of an alcoholic. I almost don’t care what he looks like. Now there’s a cock I’d want in my face.
To me, the Hot Geek is considerably more attractive than the other types in that he actually exists. The rest are exactly what they are described as here–fantasies.
Let me assure Mister Saggitarius79 that the Muscle Screw-Loose, at least, most certainly does exist. And can be sort of fun! In small does. In VERY small doses. (PROTIP: Do NOT give Muscle Screw-Loose your real phone number!)
The Screwloose is indubitably real, does exist, in all their obnoxious glory, and I have the black and blue bruises to prove it. As funny as this post was there are many truisms about these ‘types’, proving, i suppose, that generalities and cliches are often that because they are general truths. It seems the more a person falls into the category of a type the more desirable they are, but also, too the more predicatble and ultimately boring (after the first three or four times in bed.)
Trent Reznor. Damn.
McHale: Hot. McHale: Geek. McHale = Hot Geek.
Jason Statham could toss me out of a moving car when he was done with me and I’ll still be grateful I’d hit the hell out of that. Total fucking pig.
To quote Will and Grace (oh shut up, you love it too lol):
[JACK PULLS KAREN TO THE SIDE.]
JACK: [QUIETLY] Do you know what we have here? The rarest of all gay subspecies: The Hot Gay Nerd!
KAREN: [GASPS] Fascinating. I thought that the Hot Gay Nerd could be found only in the halls of academia or the bathrooms of the Pentagon. Honey, you should ask him out.
JACK: No, no, no. Can’t just ask out a Hot Gay Nerd. The HGN is notoriously skittish. They must be approached slowly and from the rear.
[JACK AND KAREN MOVE OVER TO OBSERVE AARON FROM BEHIND.]
…
[talking into a tape recorder]
JACK: [QUIETLY] The Hot Gay Nerd… is unaware of his natural beauty. He hides what appears to be a narrow waist and broad shoulders under ill-fitting khaki. And a belt that clearly came with the pants.
Jason Statham is total totty. Watch his earlier work such as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. I got a hard-on despite him keeping his clothes on.
“Jekyll” with Matt Keeslar from “Urbania”, “Splendor” and “Psycho Beach Party” would be otherwise unwatchable if not for Matt stripping down, growing sideburns and having group sex whenever he turns into whore Mr. Hyde.
What’s the common denominator? Let’s see:
1) Hot geek = Nerd with a great body
2) Virgin/Whore = Bland guy with a great body
3) Sensitive hardbody = Sensitive guy with a great body
4) Gay guido = Italian meathead with a great body
5) Muscle screwloose = Nutcase with a great body
We gay men are truly slaves to a great body. Other attributes are relatively unimportant, merely inflecting our desire for the athletic physique.
My family moved to the Jersey Shore when I was 13, so I was constantly getting crushes on Guidos in my teens and as a young adult. The guy on the left in Trix’s link to the pic on guidofistpump.com is a prime example of the guys I was always yearning for. So macho, so pumped, so masculine…
Back in the eighties, they were the only thing down at the shore. Actually, they still are a prime part of the culture, at least far as physically attractive men go. Especially in the summer, there are still a lot of guidos showing off on the beach at the Jersey Shore.
To be truthful…. the Hot Gay Nerd probably fantazies about
getting skewered by the Muscle Screwloose.
“We gay men are truly slaves to a great body. Other attributes are relatively unimportant, merely inflecting our desire for the athletic physique.”
Heterosexuals are allowed to have their bimbos without being written off wholesale as shallow. I think only two of the guys listed would qualify as numb skulls, the Guido definitely, but the last one might surprise you. If you can find a man who listens to Ennio Morricone or will sit and watch “Exotica”, “Princess Mononoke”, or “Inland Empire” with you, then you’re a lucky man.
“Heterosexuals are allowed to have their bimbos without being written off wholesale as shallow”
Agreed. But let’s not pretend that we are attracted by the Hot Geek’s brain, or the Sensitive Hardbody’s taste in music, when we know that if either of those guys were carrying a few extra pounds, their other good qualities would be ignored. To most gay men that I’ve encountered, physical beauty is the sine qua non of attractiveness. This is completely understandable, but we should at least be honest about it.
I am attracted to those things and clearly so is the author.
I have always been attracted to Meloni since his Chris Keller Oz days. The man is just pure SEX.
*gasp!*
Do not have impure thoughts about the Middleman!!!
…
I have dibs!
I’ll tell you a secret: I like to fuck ass.
Bonus points for name-checking Justin Theroux and Trent Reznor. Good times.
NO No No….To me, FIRST AND FOREMOST of importance…Great sense of humor, sort of quirky….a very close second, the face……receding hairline, possibly balding at the crown, also….NEXT- Intelligence…Then, sensitivity, humility, natural humility, ’cause the guys I’m attracted to, aren’t the greatest looking… My friends think I’m nuts… (I am a little…) Body, least important, but prefer some hair…OH, The most important body trait, Even though body is least of my concerns, I love a coupla LOVE HANDLES & a GUT…I think it was pointless for me to write this …I’m just contradicting myself… Just wanted to voice my, ummm… voice….
my point- ummm, I lost it…. goin’ back to look at the JOEL pic, But would like him to have a bit of a belly…That would be… PERFECTION.
David Tennant, hands down, any day or night! Go geeks!
I have been thinking about this post all evening… I started my marketing thesis course tonight with a hot geek for a professor. He’s a market researcher with a goofy, Clive Owen kinda look and his name is Dr. Richard (MAP fans, I kid you not!!!). I spent most of my class peering into his blazer for a peek at his body. At some point he even sat on his desk, so I had to cleverly shift my position in my chair. He also falls into another “type” not included in this discussion: the Silver Fox!!! I *reeeeallly* hope to *learn* a lot in these following weeks….